‘Kiev desperately pushing for greater conflict with Russia’

Pro-Russian protesters stand in front of a barricade in front of an occupied building of the Regional State Administration in Donetsk on April 20, 2014.(AFP Photo / Max Vetrov) / AFP

The Ukrainian authorities seek to escalate conflict with Russia so as to call for the support of the West, NATO and the EU, while Right Sector plays the role of the illegal infantry of the Kiev government, journalist Manuel Ochsenreiter told RT.

RT:Do you think the shoot-out in Slavyansk
on the weekend indicates the interim authorities in Kiev are
losing control?

Manuel Ochsenreiter: No, this would be the most
Kiev-friendly explanation of the incident of Saturday night. What we witness
now is just one of a countless series of provocations which take
place by Kiev. Kiev really desperately tries to get into a bigger
conflict with Russia. The background of this is very easy – to
call for the support of the West, to call for the support of NATO
as well as of the EU. So I don’t think that this incident is a
sign of losing control. Maybe Kiev would like it to look like
that, but in reality this is just an organized provocation
against the people of eastern Ukraine who desperately want to
have a federation or even to become officially Russian, and
against of course Russia to get more support from the West.

RT:Could the killings push Kiev to become
more active in dealing with radicals? Does Kiev have enough power
to crack down on these extremists?

MO: This is a philosophical question because if
you want to crack down on extremists you need the will to crack
down on them. What we know is that those extremists, those armed
forces which are pushing the interim government of western
Ukraine to government, to power, the so-called Right Sector, that
they have to be almost thankful for them [that they are in]
power. Why should they want to crack down on those extremists?

It looks like something else right now. It looks like the Right
Sector is now playing the role of the illegal infantry of the
Kiev government. It’s very easy. We see it in other geopolitical
conflicts with the same frontlines as well. We see in Syria, for
example, that the Salafi gangs play the role the Right Sector is
now playing for Kiev. Always when these gangs are doing
something, the so-called political opposition of Syria says,
“We are not responsible for what they do there, they are
acting on their own behalf, we don’t have to do anything with
them.” So those illegal forces always violate those
agreements as [they are doing with] the one of Geneva for one
side.

RT:The Kiev authorities have agreed that
the illegal groups should be disarmed. How achievable is
this?

MO: You see, the Ukrainian state stopped to
exist. It’s a failed state, so the government in Kiev is nothing
else as satellite government. It’s a mix of oligarchs and
organized crime, and of course terrorists – the Right Sector. We
should see it as a terrorist organization, activists of the Right
Sector fought in Chechen wars against Russia alongside Islamism
terrorists. So we should see that Kiev doesn’t have a will as
well as the power to crack down on those people, and that long
since weeks other people telling what to be done, what not, we
have to see that American advisors already active there, that
there are NATO advisors, we have to see this in a context that
Poland is asking for 10,000 US troops on their soil. Something
big is going on and the Right Sector’s aggression against the
Eastern Ukrainian is just a little pretext of what we will maybe
expect within the next weeks.

RT:Do you think a healthy national
dialogue, another key point agreed in Geneva, is possible in the
current circumstances?

MO: Of course it would be possible in theory if
both sides would act on behalf of the people. The western
Ukrainians have as little interest in the armed conflict as the
eastern Ukrainians, but we have to see that the government in
Kiev is not anymore acting on behalf of its people. We see it at
the social affairs that people start suffering. Western Ukraine
already have the leverage shock therapy, the first phases [of]
what the people should expect there. So it would be possible if
both sides act on behalf of the people but at least one side is
not doing this and this is for sure the western Ukrainian side.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.